I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Mavis Scores Big at the Thrift Store – 24 Pieces of Clothing for $8

So. There’s this little hole in the wall thrift store in town called SAVE Thrift Store. I say it’s a hole in the wall because unless you were a local, you’d never know it existed. The store does have a paid manager and assistant manager but other than that, the store is staffed by volunteers and high school students. The profits from the store go to the local high school scholarship fund and the store relies 100% on donations from the community.

In the 11 years we’ve lived in Gig Harbor, I’ve dropped off donations more times than I’ve actually gone into the store. I’ve known about their “bag sales” for years now, but for some reason I had never gone to one until last Saturday. They have a bag sale every couple of weeks and for $8 you get to stuff a brown paper bag full of clothing.

Yada yada yada, The Girl being the penny pinching college student that she is, wanted to go and take a look. So we did. And I was pleasantly surprised at what we came home with.

Gap Chino Floral Skirt… with pockets!!! Cute to wear in the summertime but I bet it would be pretty delicious pared with Smartwool tights in the fall and winter! Did I mention the skirt has POCKETS?!!!! I loooooove pockets.

Puma golf shorts. I don’t golf, but hey, they’re kind of fun in a retro, my grandma wears polyester plaid pants to bingo and has a curio cabinet stuffed with pink poodle figurines sort of way.

If I would have purchased everything on a regular day at the thrift store my total would have been $149.50. But because I went on a “bag sale” day I only paid $8!!!!! Sweet diggity dog! Now that is what I call a bargain.

My favorite find of the day….

This little black dress. For $0.33! Wahoooo! I don’t know about you, but I despise spending big bucks for formal clothing that I’ll only wear a handful of times… So the fact that I was able to find a second hand dress in my size and for $0.33? Best deal ever!!!!

It just goes to show you… Those big box thrift stores, you know, the ones that sell used baby pajamas for $4.99 are totally overrated. If you really want a deal, shop local. Shop the little charity, church and re-use stores because that’s where you’re going to find your bargains at. And chances are, the money the smaller stores make, will be going back directly into your local community.

Comments

I love SAVE! They are super picky about what they accept, so the quality is high. My niece volunteered there before she joined Amazon. My daughter was awarded one of their scholarships when she graduated high school. I’m so glad you posted about this store.

Those are some deals for sure!! The “7” jeans were a steal for sure! I’ve been shopping on the second hand clothing facebook groups and while they aren’t as good as a bargain as you’ve found they sure beat buying new. Keep up the good deals and blog posts!

Wow! That’s like a whole wardrobe for $8! I’ll have to keep an eye out on the very few local thrift stores we have around here to see if they have any super sales like that one. The one that I like is starting to show prices like the “big box” thrift stores. Pity. Can’t help people if no one wants to pay your too high costs for donated items.

There is no such thing around here. However, the smaller sizes are in more abundance than the X size I wear. Larger sizes are often shabby from wear and not so stylish. Of course, this is my experience. You had a great shopping experience.

You are just too cute! You look awesome in your new clothes! I just took a van load to a resale shop today. And I mean it was loaded! This is from my MILs closet. I haven’t gone through ours yet. Since she died, we needed to do something. There were 6 large bags that had already been taken. I still have 3 more from her room. Some old her clothes had only been worn a time or two. Some were from the 70’s but still in good condition. And we haven’t touched her house, yet.

Mavis, you are the reason I’m getting rid of excess. I don’t blame you, I give you the credit! Thank you for your emails! You are my hero!

AWESOME! You found a gold mine – BUT NOTHING beats the RUSH of money saved!! 🙂 Excellent work! You helped the store and program it supports by shopping there and blogging about it AND you walked away with some great finds!

That dress is gorgeous on you dah-ling! Church yardsales are great for those kind of prices too! We went to one a few weeks back and they had fill a grocery bag for $1 deal and we ended up staying so long that they dropped the price to 2 grocery bags for $1! We also went at almost closing time so that helps. And you are supporting a good cause so it’s a win win!

Oh I LOVE this!! What a great deal. Our local Salvation Army used to have a bag sale ($5.00), but they stopped doing it about a year ago. They are getting a new Captain, so maybe they’ll start it up again. One can hope!